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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23799034">Freakin' Me Out</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldkirk/pseuds/goldkirk'>goldkirk</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Doctor Wayne AU [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Robin (Comics)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Appendicitis, Bad Parents Jack and Janet Drake, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Child Neglect, Doctor Bruce Wayne, Gen, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Malnutrition, Medical Procedures, Sickfic, Tim Drake's Missing Spleen, Tim isn't stupid but he is in denial, and i have decided to be the change i want to see in this world, realistic medical situations and treatments bc there is not enough of that in fiction</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 23:27:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>19,240</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23799034</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldkirk/pseuds/goldkirk</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce hadn’t set out to become a doctor.<br/>Bruce hadn’t set out to become much of anything, really, but life didn’t seem to care what Bruce intended. He finished out high school like Alfred wanted, booked a one-way ticket to Thailand, and set off to either find himself or die some way that would make him feel like it was worth the extra years in between.<br/>And then fourteen years later, he found himself working his first day on call as a full-fledged pediatric general surgeon, of all things, at Gotham Children’s.<br/>And Bruce?<br/>He was the best. </p><p>Bruce is a doctor, in a world that took a few major left turns. His kids always seem to find him anyway. (one chapter for each child, not in chronological order)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dick Grayson &amp; Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd &amp; Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake &amp; Bruce Wayne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Doctor Wayne AU [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1714630</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>209</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1086</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Tim</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I really hope you like it!!!!! This is just too fun an AU to leave alone.</p><p>This story is inspired by conversations with the brilliant <a href="https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Niullum/pseuds/Niullum">Niullum!</a></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Bruce is on the tail end of his shift, and<em> so beyond ready </em> to go home. He’s had three scheduled surgeries, plus two emergency ones for kids caught up in nighttime car accidents, and he’s been here since seven the previous evening, and it’s almost eight a.m. now. And Dick has a gymnastics meet that starts this evening, and Jason needs help with some pre-calc, and Bruce would like to be actually functional for both of those things. </p><p>As far as night shifts go, he’s had worse, but that doesn’t stop his eyes from feeling mildly on fire.</p><p>“Dr. Wayne,” Selina’s smooth voice calls, as he’s speed-walking past the pit. </p><p>“Dr. Kyle,” he returns, smiling. “Stunning as always. Please tell me you’re not about to hand me a toddler with first-time parents who possibly needs emergency surgery when I have half an hour left till the end of my shift.”</p><p>Selina falls into step alongside him as he slows slightly, and passes him the tablet she’d been holding. </p><p>“No toddlers,” she promises. “Timothy Jackson Drake, fourteen years old, passed out in first period and got brought in by one of the wee-woo wagons a little bit ago.”</p><p>Bruce snorts. <em> “Wee-woo </em>wagon?”</p><p>“What can I say? Toddlers rub off on you. Figured I’d see if it would catch on.”</p><p>“Toddlers, huh? You sure it wasn’t drunk teenagers?” Bruce asks. He frowns. “His temperature is elevated. EMTs give any more info?”</p><p>“Lower right quadrant pain,” Selina says, and Bruce groans quietly. “Which he’s incessantly trying to brush off as not a big deal.”</p><p>“But he passed out?”</p><p>Selina nods, grinning slightly. “Like a sack of potatoes, right out of his seat, or so the teacher told EMS.” </p><p>Bruce rubs the bridge of his nose for a couple seconds. “Okay,” he says. “Okay. I got him. Hopefully this is just a run-of-the-mill appendix case. Parents?”</p><p>“The school couldn’t get a hold of them. We’re still trying, but the kid says they’re currently on a dig in Egypt and probably won’t be near a phone again till the evening. He doesn’t know of any other adults authorized to consent to medical care for him, no nannies or anything.”</p><p>“Hm,” says Bruce. “We may not be able to wait, but I’ll know after the eval. Is Pete in yet?”</p><p>“Nope,” Selina says, as she breaks off down a side hallway. “But I’ll page you as soon as he does, and let him know he’ll need to scrub in!”</p><p>“Thanks, Selina,” Bruce calls after her. He skims the file one more time, then turns and heads for one of the ER hallway spots. The quicker he checks the kid over, the quicker he can go home and sleep. Easy peasy, hopefully, and then both of them will be on their way.</p><hr/><p>The kid, Tim, is unfailingly polite, and frighteningly good at acting like he’s not in pain, even while Bruce can see his pale skin, flushed cheeks, and stiff posture where he’s leaning back against the gurney. They quickly run through the usual introductions, but Bruce can tell the boy doesn’t want to be here. He doesn’t blame him.</p><p>The nurse is finishing getting a pulse ox and blood pressure cuff on Tim when Bruce pulls on a pair of gloves and steps up to the mattress, and when he gives her a nod, she tugs the curtain shut behind her and heads off. </p><p>“How would you rate your pain?” Bruce asks. “On a scale of zero to ten, if zero is no pain at all anywhere, and ten is the worst pain you can possibly imagine.”<br/>“Uh,” Tim says. “A three?”</p><p>Bruce stares at him. He looks at the pale tinge of Tim’s skin, his pinched eyes, the numbers on his blood pressure reading. </p><p>“Are you sure about that?”</p><p>“Yes?” Tim says. </p><p>Bruce pulls up a pain chart on his phone, and turns it around for Tim to read. “Here, I want you to look this over really quick and tell me which description you think fits best, okay?”</p><p>Tim is silent for several seconds while he reads the description of each number, and then he looks back up at Bruce. “I guess...a five?”</p><p>A five. Bruce will write it down, but this kid is definitely higher than a five. Clearly he doesn’t have a lot of practice rating pain. Which Bruce supposes is a good thing, in a way, but definitely not the greatest in this particular situation. </p><p>“A five,” Bruce echoes. “But you passed out in class?”<br/>“Only for a second,” Tim says. “It was a one time thing. I probably just didn’t drink enough water, right? It’s an exam week, I haven’t been sleeping much and everything.”</p><p>“Hm,” says Bruce. “Maybe. We’ll find out, okay? You’re sure there’s no one we can call for you right now, besides your parents?”</p><p>Tim shakes his head. “No relatives on this side of the country,” he says. “It’s fine. I’m good. I can handle things fine. I’m used to it.”</p><p>Bruce aches for this kid. </p><p>“Tim, do you mind pulling the gown up for me so I can check out your abdomen? That’s where you’re having pain, right?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Tim says. He still sounds wary, and a little bit tense. “Uh, sure.”</p><p>Bruce leans in a little to get a good look, and Tim is bunching up the thin star-covered fabric in his hands to get it out of the way, and in two seconds flat Bruce knows that this isn’t going to be a garden-variety appendicitis case. </p><p>“Tim,” he says, very calmly, eyes locked on the stark line on the kid’s skin. “Where’d you get this scar, here, bud?”</p><p>“Uh,” says Tim. “I lost my spleen?” </p><p>Oh, this complicates things. This complicates things a lot. </p><p>“You lost your spleen?”</p><p>“Yes.” Tim looks a little sullen now, and Bruce can tell he’s trying not to hunch over protectively while Bruce prods the edges of the long scar down the center of his abdomen. Definitely an open splenectomy, so no time or options to do it laparoscopically. That’s a major surgery. <em> Why was this not in the kid’s chart?  </em></p><p>“Do you have antibiotics?” Bruce asks. He’s fighting to keep the urgent tone out of his voice. “You have a fever. Have you taken any since that started?”</p><p>Tim shakes his head. “My parents didn’t get the prescription refilled after the last time I needed them.”</p><p>Dishonor on his parents. And their cow. Bruce’s fingers are moving steadily, palpating each quadrant, and Tim is clearly miserable. He can <em> see </em>Tim’s leg twitch when he starts creeping over towards the lower right quadrant of the kid’s abdomen, and if the situation were less serious, he might have allowed a laugh at Tim needing to keep himself from straight up kicking Bruce away. </p><p>“How did you lose it?” Bruce asks. </p><p>“The Joker.” </p><p>Bruce’s brain and fingers both stutter to a momentary halt. </p><p>“The J--”</p><p>“Remember when he shot that bazooka into traffic last year?”</p><p>Bruce’s voice is a bit strained. “Yes.”</p><p>“My bus was in that.” </p><p>“Y--”</p><p>“And yet,” Tim says, scowling fiercely, “we <em> still don’t have seatbelts. </em> Unbelievable.”</p><p>Bruce presses gently, so, so gently, feather-light on Tim’s lower right abdomen, reeling from that unexpected answer, and as he lets up he asks mechanically, “Is this where--”</p><p>Tim goes <em> gray </em>. His entire body tenses, then relaxes, and his eyes roll up for just a brief second while his cut-off shout of pain bounces around the air for a few moments longer. </p><p>“Oh, bud,” Bruce says, quietly. One hand rests gently on Tim’s stomach, his thumb rubbing little circles in Tim’s now-sweat-soaked skin, and his other reaches to brush Tim’s bangs back while the kid blinks his eyes open again and clearly fights off involuntary tears. </p><p><em> Pale as the inside of an oyster, </em> Jason would declare if he were here. Tim is shaking slightly. </p><p>“I’m so sorry,” Bruce says. “Breathe, Tim. Deep breaths, nice and slow.” </p><p>Tim does his best to follow the instructions, closing his eyes and hanging on to Bruce’s hand while he evens back out. </p><p>“I’m<em> fine,” </em>Tim says, rushed and a little frantic, the second he can speak again. “I’m fine, I’m fine, sorry--”</p><p>“You’re not fine,” Bruce says, voice gentle. “That’s okay. You don’t need to apologize. I’m sorry you’re in so much pain, Tim. I think you’ve got appendicitis. If you do, it’s going to have to come out.”</p><p>The look Tim turns on him is a lot more panicked than Bruce expects. </p><p>“No,” Tim says. “No, I can’t, it’s fine, I’m just sick, or--even if it is, I was reading about it, you can just give me a lot of antibiotics, it’ll heal--”</p><p>“Tim, you don’t have a spleen. And we don’t know how bad your appendix is, if that is what’s going on here. This is a medical emergency, it can’t wait.”</p><p>“I can’t,” Tim repeats. “No, we were having a test, I have to finish--”</p><p>“Your teacher will let you take it later,” Bruce tries to soothe, and a different nurse--Molly, Bruce remembers, pretty new, very sweet, good with baby veins--is poking her head around the curtain, a question on her face. He nods furtively, and she steps away, over towards where they keep medication. </p><p>“It’s worth 26% of our grade,” Tim blurts out, breathing picking up. “I’m not--I can’t do this again, please just let me go home, please, I promise I won’t mess up this time, I thought it was just the stomach flu or something, I’ll take antibiotics, I’m fine.”</p><p>“Tim,” Bruce says, firmly, gently taking both of the boy’s shoulders in his broad hands. “Tim, listen to me. This is going to be okay, but we need to check your appendix as soon as possible, and if it’s infected, it has to come out. I promise your school will understand, and if your teacher gives you trouble, you can email me and I’ll talk to him myself. Okay?”</p><p>Tim just stares at him wide-eyed as the nurse comes back over with supplies. </p><p>“It isn’t your fault,” Bruce adds, registering what Tim said. “You didn’t do anything to cause this. It happens. You didn’t mess up, kiddo.”</p><p>Tim just swallows hard and grips Bruce’s wrists. Bruce sees Molly waiting patiently a few feet away out of the corner of his eye. </p><p>“I can’t,” Tim says, quieting now, closing his eyes, and this is <em> worse </em>. “Please, Dr. Wayne, there’s got to be something else to do. I don’t want to do this again.”</p><p>Oh. <em>Oh</em>. Bruce thinks he gets it, or at least kind of. Enough.</p><p>“Tim,” he says, gentle and steady. “Molly is going to give you a small amount of morphine to help with your pain, get you more comfortable. And then I’m going to order a CT scan of your abdomen so we can find out what’s going on for sure, and then we’ll make a decision from there. I’m sorry that this is happening so suddenly, and I know it’s terrifying and you’re in a lot of pain right now, but listen to me. This surgery is not like when you lost your spleen. There’s time to do this laparoscopically, not with an open incision that’s big and takes a lot longer to heal. You’d just have a few smaller incisions and a lot faster recovery.”</p><p>“You’re sure?” Tim asks. </p><p>“I promise,” Bruce says. “Your spleen was damaged from blunt-force trauma, and I’m guessing you had internal bleeding going on, and the surgeon then couldn’t spare time, and had to do clean-up of the damage. But this is a lot more controlled, because you’re here and pretty stable. We do this surgery all the time, Tim. It’s quick and straightforward, and even with things being a little more complicated because of your missing spleen, you’re going to have a much easier time.”</p><p>Tim looks doubtful, but seems to be taking Bruce as much at his word as he can. </p><p>“Okay,” he says. “I...you said I have to have a scan first?” </p><p>Bruce nods. </p><p>“And if the scan shows that it’s, like, not that bad? Or--”</p><p>“If it’s not your appendix, we won’t need to take it out,” Bruce says. “But if it is, we can’t risk leaving it in with your immune system being compromised. I promise we will only do it if it’s necessary, okay?”</p><p>Tim sighs, and Bruce can see the resignation the boy suddenly wraps himself up in like a coat. </p><p>“Can Molly give you some pain medication now?” Bruce asks. “I want you as comfortable as possible.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Tim mumbles. “Sure.” He doesn’t watch as Molly twists the plastic syringe into place in one of the ports on Tim’s IV catheter and carefully pushes the morphine, but his entire body relaxes noticeably after only seconds.”</p><p>“I’m going to get that scan set up,” Bruce says, peeling off his gloves and tossing them in one of the bins. “Molly, will you stay with Tim for a few minutes and get his vitals again? I’ll be right back.” </p><p>“Of course,” she says, sparing him a quick smile before focusing entirely back on Tim, and as Bruce walks away he can hear her starting to gently ask about Tim’s hobbies, and family, and what he was going to do this weekend.</p><p>With Tim in good hands, Bruce pulls out his phone and texts Selina, letting her know the situation, and that he’s going to cover it. Then he sends Alfred a quick text--<em> Sorry, last minute case. Won’t be home till later. Update when I can. </em></p><p>And then he gets to work. </p><hr/><p>Over the course of an hour, Bruce learns a lot.</p><p>It’s definitely Tim’s appendix. It definitely needs to come out. Tim’s splenectomy isn’t in his records because the boy hasn’t been to the family doctor since he was five, and he was triaged and treated over at Gotham Memorial since it was closest to the accident last year, and since it was part of the regions other major medical system, his records never got transferred to this one. And his parents never scheduled the recommended follow-up visit with his normal doctor, so it wasn’t recorded that way, either.</p><p>It’s sure in his file <em>now</em>. Bruce made sure of that. </p><p>Tim’s parents are definitely in Egypt, and they still haven’t been reachable. Nor, apparently, did they set up any actual caretaker for Tim during their absence, aside from weekly cleaners and a system of grocery deliveries. Some teenagers can be very independent, and lord knows he was one of them, but even teenage Bruce understood that some supervision was necessary. So Tim is about to have surgery without parental consent, because it’s an emergency and they’re unreachable, and when he wakes up, he’s going to probably be a ward of the state. </p><p>Bruce already texted Alfred to ask if their case worker in the Department of Children and Families could look into it and see if there was any way they could help. Bruce has the experience, after all, from both Dick and Jason, and Tim is apparently their neighbor. It’s at least worth a check. </p><p>And as for Tim himself, Bruce has tried not to leave him alone for more than a few minutes. As much as the kid seems independent and sharp as anything, he’s scared. More scared than patients usually are, even for emergency surgery. The only thing that seemed to help was Bruce calmly explaining, step by step, exactly what he’ll do during the surgery, to distract Tim while in pre-op. </p><p>And now Bruce is ready, in the OR, scrubbed in and gloved up and looking up just in time to see Tim being rolled through the doors, pale and determined. </p><p>Once Tim is on the table, and the anesthesiologist is just waiting for his okay to have Tim start his countdown, Bruce leans over and smiles large enough that he knows his eyes are crinkling up above the mask. </p><p>“Hey, bud,” he says. “You ready?”</p><p>“No,” Tim snorts. He manages to shoot Bruce a quick smile, even if it’s small. “But I have to be.”</p><p>“Tim,” Bruce says. “You’re going to be okay. Don’t worry. I’m very, very good at what I do.”</p><p>He can see amusement warring with nerves across Tim’s face. </p><p>“That should really sound pretentious,” Tim says, “but for some reason it doesn’t, from you. Thanks, Dr. Wayne. I’m sorry I’m being such a pain about all of this.”</p><p>“No,” Bruce says firmly. “You’re not being a pain at all. You’re doing great. It’s completely okay to be scared, and I promise I’m going to get your poor appendix out as smoothly as possible, and then you can wake up and eat as much ice cream as we can spare.”</p><p>“That doesn’t sound too bad,” Tim says, even as he’s eyeing the approaching mask nervously. Bruce hears the heart rate monitor pick up slightly. </p><p>“Hey. Tim.”</p><p>Tim looks back up at him, and the anesthesiologist gently settles the mask over Tim’s nose and mouth. </p><p>“What music do you want to hear?” Bruce asks. “I’ve got anything you want.”</p><p>Tim’s eyebrows pinch together. “Thought the surgeon chooses music?” he says, slightly muffled. </p><p>Bruce laughs for a second. “Usually, yeah. But I always ask my kids what they want to hear. You’re the one who’s doing to hard work, and I like to think that it might help a little. My only rule is no baby shark and no death metal--I have to be able to tune it out.”</p><p>“Exactly how sick did you get of Let It Go?” Tim asks, and there. That’s a real smile, finally. Bruce fights down the urge to cheer. </p><p>“Very,” says Bruce, dryly. “Come on. What music? Pick a genre, an artist, whatever.”</p><p>“Are you sure?” Tim asks. “Really?”</p><p>“Totally sure,” Bruce assures him. “Pick, and then you get to count down and try to hit zero. If you actually make it to five, I’ll get you a surprise after this.”</p><p>“You don’t have to do that,” Tim tells him immediately. “Um...could you do Sleeping At Last? Anything is fine. He’s really good for chilling out.”</p><p>“Done,” Bruce says, already typing it in. “Okay, Tim. You’ve got this. Everything’s going to be okay.”</p><p>Tim looks back up, over his head at the older anesthesiologist who’s already cracking a joke and instructing Tim to start counting down. </p><hr/><p>Tim doesn’t even make it to six. Bruce buys him a stuffed dinosaur anyway.</p><hr/><p>Tim wakes up all the way, finally, and manages to make eye hazy contact with Bruce, eyebrows drawing together over several seconds like he’s stuck in slow motion. He opens his mouth partway, like he’s about to speak. Then his eyes close again and his breathing slows all over again.</p><p>Bruce snorts quietly. He’s in one of the recovery room chairs, plastic and hard and shaped to the proportions of absolutely no one’s body, and he’s dressed in an old set of sweats that he keeps in his locker for emergencies. They’re comfortable, and Bruce is tired as all get out, and ever since he got out of the surgery and off shift, he’s been determined to not spend a minute extra in scrubs. This is his weekend off. He’s earned it.</p><p>Tim wakes up again a few minutes later without opening his eyes.</p><p>“H’llo?” he mumbles. “Shakira?”</p><p>“Afraid not,” Bruce says gently, trying to keep a straight face. “Just Dr. Wayne again.”</p><p>“Oh,” says Tim, and then he lets out a tiny little sigh and doesn’t speak again for a minute. Bruce glances over the monitors, checking once, twice, thinks about grabbing a thermometer and doing the hourly temperature check a little early, just in case--</p><p>“Y’know there’re...plants on...the space station?” Tim says, so quietly, Bruce almost can’t hear him.</p><p>Bruce does know this. That’s not the point.</p><p>“Really?” he asks.</p><p>“Mmhmm,” Tim gets out. One of his hands drifts up and starts scratching at the oxygen cannula under his nose, and Bruce gently catches his wrist and settles it back down against the mattress.</p><p>“Plants on the space station?” Bruce prods.</p><p>“S’many,” Tim says. “Little plants. Alllll these lil plants...just up there...in space...we grew…”</p><p>He’s silent again for a minute, mouth open slightly, and Bruce can’t help smiling and remembering Dick after his first surgery. He’d been the same way. Almost like watching baby chicks fall asleep and wake up in the span of a blink.</p><p>“Grew vegt--veget--<em>vegetables,”</em> Tim suddenly says, sounding it out carefully, like he’s trying not to trip over his tongue. “And. Flower. Flowers? A zinnia. So pretty.” He opens his eyes, glancing around, and spots Bruce.</p><p>“Dr. Wayne?” he asks, tiredly. “You’re here?”</p><p>“I am,” Bruce says, smiling. “No one should wake up alone. I figured I’d keep you some company. The surgery went perfectly, bud, you’re going to heal up just fine.”</p><p>“Oh,” Tim slurs. “‘S’good. But...you c’n go…”</p><p>“I’d rather stay,” Bruce tells him. “If that’s all right with you. I’m interested to hear more about these space flowers.”</p><p>Tim’s eyes blink open wider again. “Zinnias,” he says, nodding. “Mm. Yeah. Pretty.”</p><p>“So you said.”</p><p>“D’you think...the plants up there are happy?”</p><p>Bruce runs his fingers over the gift bag in his lap. “Are they happy? I never really thought about that before.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Tim says. “They’re all...up there in a space station, all that way away from Earth...and like...they never asked to go to space? Right? They just--and one day--boom, whoa, rocket, oh man, and then there’s no gravity? And the Sun, they can’t get--”</p><p>Tim’s breath hitches.</p><p>“Tim, hey--”</p><p>“Can’t let the Sun in,” Tim says, sniffing. “Too...radiation...bad? They just have like...lights...Dr. Wayne...they don’t get to see the Sun...they must be so sad--”</p><p>Tears are actually welling up now. Bruce doesn’t know what to do with this. Oh boy.</p><p>“Do they miss the ground?” Tim says, sounding positively weepy. “How do they know how to grow? What if they miss their moms?” He pauses for a moment. “I miss my mom. Why do moms go away?”</p><p>This is above Bruce’s paygrade. This is honestly above the paygrade of the very lovely social worker who’s down the hall, too, but Tim is right here, now, and this is not the kind of conversation he needs to be having after an emergency surgery.</p><p>“Did you know you get a teddy bear after your surgery?” Bruce says, quickly. He’s slipped into the tone of voice he uses with little kids.</p><p>Tim blinks, looking over at him again, as if remembering he’s there suddenly. “What?”</p><p>“A teddy bear,” Bruce repeats, smiling gently. He reaches out and picks the surgery bear off of Tim’s rolling tray nearby, and holds it in the boy’s line of sight. “You did a great job. You earned it.”</p><p>“But…” Tim starts, then trails off. He reaches for the bear and misses by several inches. “It’s got a little mask on.”</p><p>“Yep,” Bruce agrees. “It’s a hospital bear. Can you read what its shirt says?”</p><p>Tim squints. “Get well.”</p><p>“Good job,” says Bruce. “Yes. And that’s exactly what you’re going to do. How are you feeling, Tim?”</p><p>“Uh,” Tim says. “Rainbow?”</p><p>Bruce blinks. “Rainbow?”</p><p>“The computer screen looks like it’s a ripply rainbow.” Tim frowns. “Don’t think it’s s’posed to do that.”</p><p>“That would be the meds,” Bruce says.</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>“How’s your pain?” Bruce clarifies.</p><p>“Uhhhhhhh...one,” Tim says. Bruce just sighs.</p><p>“All right. You’re not too sore? No sharp pains? Don’t feel sick?”</p><p>“Nope nope nope,” Tim mumbles. “Sleep. Night.”</p><p>And he’s conked out again before Bruce can say another word. Bruce smiles slightly and tucks the bear in the crook of one of Tim’s limp arms, and then settles back in his chair to keep vigil for a while longer. Tim might be alone in the legal system right now, in limbo while the state opens a case, but he’s not going to be on his own. Not while Bruce has any say in it. <br/>When Tim wakes up enough, Bruce will give him the dinosaur, and hopefully some ice cream, and a whole lot of broth. The social worker will explain the situation, and Tim will hopefully get to go to a good, stable place when he’s discharged after a few days, once they’ve given him plenty of antibiotics and are sure nothing nasty has taken the opportunity to attack his body while it’s weakened.</p><p>Bruce hopes that maybe it’ll be their place. Possibly. It’s on the table.</p><p>And tomorrow, when Tim is thoroughly awake, on lower meds, and definitely getting bored, Dick and Jason have already agreed to come ply him with MarioKart and Smash, which Bruce is assured will be enough to keep any teenager from getting antsy and trying to sneak around too much.</p><p>Tim’s going to be okay. They caught this in time, and Bruce didn’t lie when he told Tim he was good. Tim will heal. And Tim will also hopefully get his home situation sorted out, too, and start healing on that front, too. Even if that’s a much longer process.</p><p>He won’t be alone for it, at least. Bruce has already decided that much. No matter what comes, Timothy Drake is not going to be alone anymore.</p><p>For now, Bruce sets the gift bag on the windowsill, leans back, closes his eyes. Reaches out and makes sure one hand is on top of Tim’s, just in case the kind wakes up soon. He listens to the rythym of Tim’s soft breaths, the steady beep of his heart monitor, slow and measured and strong, and finally, <em> finally, </em> allows himself to drift off to sleep.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Dick</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Dick meets Bruce. Everything is the same, and completely different. They make it work.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>TAKE CARE OF YOURSELVES I HOPE YOU LIKE THIS</p><p><b>Content Warning:</b> vague descriptions of the Flying Graysons falling to their deaths, mentions of possible spinal injury, description of backboarding</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Bruce hadn’t actually planned on going to Cirque du Soleil tonight. He wasn’t even originally off <em>work.</em> </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dr. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Kyle </span>
  </em>
  <span>was the one who had tickets, the one who was going to go with Dr. Quinzel, and Bruce was going to be the attending on call and have a nice, normal shift full of chaos and scared kids and parents and a lot of fixing and helping and not getting enough sleep. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Harley had a family emergency come up, and Selina texted Bruce</span>
  <em>
    <span> hey do you want to go to the circus</span>
  </em>
  <span> and Bruce texted back </span>
  <em>
    <span>what the hell are you talking about,</span>
  </em>
  <span> and then twenty minutes later Selina somehow swapped Bruce his night shift for a circus ticket. And </span>
  <em>
    <span>then </span>
  </em>
  <span>it turned out she had only wanted wanted to go because </span>
  <em>
    <span>Harley </span>
  </em>
  <span>wanted to go, and honestly, Selina is a worse workaholic than Bruce half the time. Exhibit A being how she stole Bruce’s shift right out from under his nose. Again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So Bruce is on his way to the show, still vaguely baffled at how he was persuaded to trade his shift so quickly, tugging at his tie every six seconds because after all these years he never </span>
  <em>
    <span>has </span>
  </em>
  <span>grown into being comfortable in a formal suit. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alfred’s tried, bless him, but part of Bruce is always going to be the small gremlin child running barefoot in underwear through their woods, covered in mud and screaming with delight. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And now he’s several feet taller, many years wiser, and off to see a circus when he’d rather be meeting some new kids and helping them have a better experience instead of the scariest times of their lives so far. He likes what he does. He’d like to do it tonight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But maybe Selina’s right. Maybe an evening off will be good for him. And there are still kids at the theater, right? He’ll kick back, relax, enjoy some beautiful performances without needing to be totally switched on all evening, and hopefully by the end of it he’ll have a good time. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then, tomorrow, he can plan how to get his revenge on Dr. Kyle and take one of her shifts as fair recompense. </span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>It’s beautiful, and breathtaking, and absolutely awe-inspiring and death-defying, all the way up to the moment it’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce is no stranger to death. He’s no stranger to injury, to suffering, to the darkest acts humans can commit, he’s certainly no innocent. But the sound that the Flying Grayons make when they land--the way every breath in the audience has frozen and Bruce’s heart freezes to ice in his chest as they fall, as everything in the world continues to turn for that one single second where everyone suddenly realizes something is going wrong--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce is a doctor now, and he was a fighter before that. He knows how to sit with suffering and pain and disasters and keep his head on his shoulders, but he’s not desensitized like some of his coworkers become--he isn’t--he can’t--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The music shuts off into a horrible silence that fills with screams, with voices shouting over one another, it’s only been seconds and the building is losing it’s mind. Everyone’s eyes are buried in shoulders, flicking around in panic, fixed in horror on the scene underneath the clearly torn net, but Bruce.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce is seventeen rows down the aisle, Bruce has vaulted seats and slid on the seat of his pants down railings for extra speed, Bruce is </span>
  <em>
    <span>sprinting </span>
  </em>
  <span>for the stage faster than he’s run in months, because it’s too late for that poor couple--the laughing, smiling, absolutely radiant man and woman he’d gotten to meet just an hour ago, who were delighted to find someone who had been to their home country, who had swapped recipe tips with him, who had posed for a photo with him, and then with a small boy right after who they immediately hugged as if he was one of their own--it’s too late for them, everyone knows it. But Bruce--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce’s eyes are locked on the small figure, the one still at the top of the rigging. Bruce is sprinting harder than he ever has in his life before this moment, because that child, their son--Bruce knows the moment this boy is living, and he knows this wasn’t an accident, and he’s twenty eight years old and his long legs are vaulting the final barrier to the stage, and he’s eight years old in a wet alleyway staring at the barrel of a gun that doesn’t look real, and neither of him can breathe but there’s a boy in the air who has just lost his parents and Bruce isn’t going to leave him alone. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce is running, he’s saying something, something, his mouth telling the show medics</span>
  <em>
    <span> I’m a doctor, I’m here to help, I’m a doctor,</span>
  </em>
  <span> and the crowd is panicking, people are running--there are going to be injuries from the crush--but right now Bruce’s eyes are on the boy, and the boy is absolutely </span>
  <em>
    <span>red </span>
  </em>
  <span>with sobbing, and instead of staying put, he throws himself like a monkey towards the ladder to get down. And Bruce is too far away to help. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s all right, though, it’s all right, even while the boy is sobbing, and screaming</span>
  <em>
    <span> Mom, Mama, DATI, please!</span>
  </em>
  <span> Bruce is wondering how the boy can see right now through that amount of tears, and Bruce is sitting on freezing concrete with blurry red and blue lights and a blurry man in front of him and blurry thoughts and a blurry pain in his chest, and then the boy’s foot slips in the space between ladder rungs, and there’s a shout of surprise and a single second of freefall and then the third Flying Grayson hits the ground as well, and he doesn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>move</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce reaches him in two seconds, full of ice and kinetic motion and the rising calm of an emergency because he is a doctor and this is something he can do. He hits the deck on his knees next to the boy and leans down, already pulling out the spare gloves that never leave Bruce’s pocket night or day. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Richard,” he says, calm and even and slow and everything his insides aren’t right now. “I’m Dr. Wayne. I’m going to help you. I want you to tell me your full name, please.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The boy isn’t crying anymore, instead lying stunned and flat with wide dry eyes and no more sounds coming from what Bruce knows is a shredded and torn heart that will never have a same after as what’s now become this boy’s before. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sweetheart,” Bruce says, fingers on the boy’s pulse. “What is your full name.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One of the medics has stumbled over, very young, eyes huge and a first aid kit in hand, and that’s not going to be </span>
  <em>
    <span>enough</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Call 911,” Bruce snaps, making sure he’s locked eyes with the medic. “Take out your phone, call 911, even if someone already has, and tell them we have a pediatric male, suspected spinal trauma, and tell them to</span>
  <em>
    <span> step on it</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes sir,” the medic says, only choking once, and as he turns away to dial, Bruce is startled by a much smaller voice coming from below him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dick,” the boy croaks. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dick,” says Dick. “‘M Dick. Richard--Richard John Grayson. They’re dead,” he tacks on at the end, and his eyes are trying to dart over to his parents, and Bruce shifts more to block them as best he can. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry,” says Bruce. And he is. God, he is. He will never have the words, he will never in all of the languages have the words to tell this child how sorry he is--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Am I gonna die,” Dick says, as tears start to well up again, and the final piece of Dr. Wayne snaps into place. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce Wayne is eight and in an alley and in the cold and alone, and later he will come and take himself and wrap himself in a warm coat with tea and a quiet dark room and it will be okay. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dr. Wayne is on a stage with a terrified child and a situation that no one expected to happen, and he has a job and he will do it to perfection like he does every day. This is who he is. And there’s a child who is hurt and needs him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Bruce tells Dick firmly. “Dick, it’s very nice to talk with you. I’m going to put my hands very tight against the sides of your head, and I’m going to hold them there for quite a while, because I’m worried that you might have a hurt neck or spine. There we go. I’ve got you, I’m not going to let go or leave.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay,” Dick manages to whisper. His hot tears are already running into the edges of one of Bruce’s hands, sliding along his thumb and index finger, vanishing into the boy’s curly hair. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I need to put your head into a neutral position,” Bruce tells him, slowly, calmly. “I’m going to turn it just a few inches until your whole spine is nice and straight, and I want you to tell me if anything hurts while I do. Does anything hurt right now? Your head, your neck, ribs, anything at all?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce has been running checklists and acronyms, assessing breathing, counting heartbeats, looking for swelling, but his priority is stabilization and he has a traumatized child in his hands and </span>
  <em>
    <span>where the hell is the goddamn medic with a second set of hands right now.</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Um,” Dick says, taking a shuddering breath and speaking even while he can’t stop crying. Brave kid. “My ankle. My ankle really hurts.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce risks a glance away to see the boy’s ankles, covered in performance leotard, but one of his feet is already bruising slightly, and he’s willing to be that it’s the ankle that got wrenched by the ladder during the fall. Likely a bad sprain or a break. EMS will have splinting supplies when they arrive. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And my neck,” Dick adds, and there’s some added fear in his voice now. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay,” says Bruce. “That’s fine. A little or a lot?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The boy bites his lip. “Middle?” he says, hesitantly. “I don’t know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s fine,” Bruce repeats, low and calm. “You’re doing just fine. I’m going to keep holding the sides of your head like this, bud, and I’m going to keep your shoulders nice and still with my elbows a little bit, and I’m going to turn your head really slowly, just until it’s straight. If your neck hurts more while I’m doing it, tell me right away. Don’t try to help. I want you to stay as relaxed as if you were lying on a pool float or a hammock, and let me do all the work for you. Let me know if you understand all of that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Dick says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you have any questions?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t think so,” Dick says. Then: “Evan?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce follows Dick’s line of sight up and behind him to see the medic standing near Dick’s feet, first aid kit in hand and looking more determined than before. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, Dickie,” the medic says. Then, to Bruce, “I’m Evan. Sorry, everything is--I called, they’re sending another ambulance, and I’m ready to help.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve secured c-spine,” Bruce rattles off. “Breathing is clear, heart rate is fast but not dangerous, I need eyes on his right ankle and preferably the fabric cut away entirely down there. Dr. Wayne, pediatric surgeon at Gotham General. Pleasure to meet you.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You too,” Evan says. “Um, do you need help with--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just focus on his ankle for the moment,” Bruce says. “I’ll let you know.” He looks back down at Dick, gives his best reassuring smile. “Okay. I’m going to count down from three, and on zero I’m going to turn you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He moves slowly, carefully. His hands are large, his arms are so strong, they can lift weights and carry grown men and haul lumber and break bones, and right now there is a child between them who is having the worst night of his life and does not need a nervous doctor making a possible spinal cord injury worse because he couldn’t contain his own strength. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ow,” Dick breathes, and his eyes well up more, and Bruce freezes slowly halfway to a neutral spine position. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Does it hurt more,” he asks. “Is it your neck.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, ankle,” Dick says. “It--ow!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce sighs with relief. He closes his eyes for a moment, and then turns to speak to Evan. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t touch his leg for a moment,” Bruce orders. “Hang on.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He turns back to Dick, and lets the boy keep his eyes locked on Bruce’s lets him see that Bruce is unwavering, infallible, completely calm and not letting go. Bruce lies with his body because people need it, and he is good at it, and he wishes he didn’t ever have to be. Not for something like this. Never again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There,” Bruce murmurs, when Dick’s spine is finally straight, and Bruce is settled into position, and then he spends a minute chatting with Dick--age, medical history, favorite color, most terrible thing to put in popcorn, music preference, favorite animal--while Evan assesses Dick’s ankle and declares it probably fractured. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“All right,” Bruce says, nodding. “I need you to come up here and take over c-spine for me for just a minute so I can do a quick check overall.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce cuts Evan off. “Do you want to?” He asks. Not unkindly. Just steady, firm, an unyielding wall that neither pushes nor tugs for one answer over another. “I know you know how. But would you be more comfortable if I did it right now?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Evan’s breath rushes out all at once, and he ducks his head, unable to hold eye contact. “Yes.” He laughs, a little, short and harsh and almost damp. “Yeah. Sorry.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s perfectly fine,” Bruce says. “Just come up above Dick’s head, and we’ll switch off.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re leaving?” Dick asks, suddenly almost restless, and Bruce can’t have that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, Dick, hey, settle down, I’m not leaving. I promise you.” Bruce doesn’t let up any of the firm, steady pressure on Dick’s ears and shoulders, and Evan slides onto his knees above the crown of Dick’s head. “I’m just going to have Evan hold your head steady for a minute while I check your blood pressure and look for anything we might have missed, all right? I’m staying next to you the whole time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re not leaving?” Dick says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not leaving.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay,” Dick mumbles, and he goes lax again. He’s paler than Bruce would like, and there’s definitely the possibility that the poor kid is headed towards shock, but overall, Bruce thinks he’s holding up remarkably well for the situation. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They do the handoff on Bruce’s count, one side of Dick’s head at a time, always maintaining two points of contact, and then Bruce’s hands are free, and he’s pulled a notepad and supplies out of the first aid kit and writing down vitals within thirty seconds. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce’s hands glide down Dick’s body gently, lightly, only pausing to check for swelling here, feel for rib integrity there. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay, Dick,” Bruce says, rocked up onto the balls of his feet and squatting at a height where Dick will be able to see his face without straining. “I’m going to ask you to try to move certain things one at a time. Just a tiny wiggle, got it? Nothing big. Do not nod or shake your head, just let me know if you understand and can do it, yes or no.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Dick says, and Bruce wishes he could reach out and smooth away the crease between the boy’s eyebrows. He doesn’t miss the way Dick swallows, or the way his breathing has picked up since Bruce brought this up. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nice and slow,” Bruce tells him, carefully pitching his voice slower, calmer, more even. “Can you feel me tapping you here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Dick says, tightly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good,” says Bruce. “That’s great, Dick. I want you to try wiggling the fingers on this hand for me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He does. Something inside Bruce loosens just a little.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Awesome job. Perfect. Okay, next spot.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dick can feel and move all limbs still, his blood pressure is low but not critical, his ankle is almost certainly broken, and he doesn’t currently seem concussed, which is a small mercy, but Bruce knows that doesn’t mean he isn’t. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ambulances are outside!” someone shouts, from a thousand miles away, and Bruce nods to himself. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll take c-spine back over and continue to monitor his breathing,” Bruce tells Evan. “You need to go meet them and bring the paramedics straight here, he’s first priority.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because there’s nothing else to be done for his parents, Bruce doesn’t say, but both of them are thinking it regardless. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Evan nods, and they do the handoff on his count, and then the younger man is off, jumping from the stage and jogging up one of the now-cleared aisles. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dr. Wayne,” Dick says, looking at him upside down and with worry lines creasing his forehead. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s up, bud?” Bruce murmurs. His hands stay still and steady, just like the rest of him, and somewhere in the back of his mind he vaguely thinks of Alfred, Bruce’s own rock on the night that was this night in his own childhood. Alfred’s hands, thinner and older, but still rock-steady, still warm, still alive and tethering Bruce to the world when he felt like the earth was gone and he would fly away on the wind and never be found again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s gonna happen?” Dick asks him, and Bruce doesn’t know if he means right this second or with life in general, but he takes a deep breath and goes with the easiest option. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The paramedics are going to come in here and come up on the stage with us,” he tells Dick. “They’ll be very nice. They’re going to ask you questions, some of them ones you already answered for me, and then they’re going to very, very carefully roll you on your side so they can slide a backboard under you and we can strap you onto that. It’ll let them move you without making your injuries worse. And your head will be held in place by these two big foam blocks, and a strap over your forehead.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce looks down at Dick and grins a tiny bit. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The foam is kind of weird,” he says, conspiratorially. “It’s a little unpleasant, not being able to move your head to see, but they have little ear holes cut out of them so you can hear all right. And if you’re uncomfortable or nervous, you can tell them right away that you want them to stay where you can see them easily the whole time, all right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Have you had to wear them?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Twice,” Bruce says, and he can hear the commotion outside as the doors to the lobby are opened, and then there are more people in the space, the tell-tale flash of an orange backboard in the corner of his eye. “Once from a car accident, a long time ago, and once when I was rock climbing. And for training scenarios, but those don’t really count.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You rock climb?” Dick asks, the first time he’s actually sounded like the kid Bruce saw before the show since he’d reached the stage. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mmhmm,” Bruce says, as two paramedics hop up onto the stage with supplies. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where do you climb?” Dick asks, and Bruce can feel him tensing under his hands as the strangers approach, uniformed, hurried, carrying unfamiliar supplies. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, all over,” Bruce tells Dick. “Not often anymore, I’m usually too busy working at the hospital, but I climbed in Spain back in the Summer for fourteen days. It was beautiful.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wow,” Dick breathes, and he’s so tense now it has to be hurting his ankle at least. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hello,” Bruce says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hi,” the first paramedic says, breaking into a warm smile. Bruce can see the freckles crinkle up on her nose. “I’m Amanda, and this is my partner John. We’re here to help you out, Dick.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay,” the boy says, still wary, but clearly warming a little to Amanda. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know, I have a little brother who’s somewhere around your age,” Amanada starts. She kneels next to Dick and pulls on her gloves, picking up the note paper Bruce had left sitting on Dick’s chest. “He’s really into the new Pokemon game right now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh,” says Dick. He’s watching John shoot him a smile while sliding their blood pressure cuff onto his arm, and then his eyes flick back to Amanda’s. “I like Pokemon. I don’t have the new game yet, though.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah? What’s your favorite Pokemon?” Amanda asks. “I’m going to listen to your heart for a second, sorry, this’ll be cold.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t pick one,” Dick replies, sounding mildly offended. “That’s like--that’s like asking someone to pick a favorite movie. There are too many different kinds. My Dad always says that--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then Dick breaks off into silence, and the air turns into soup, and Bruce’s head is a litany of shit, shit, oh, hell, shit, and Amanda’s whole face is an open book of sympathy and pain while Dick looks a lot like someone just clocked him with a two by four. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s your dad say, kid?” John asks, softly, and he’s holding an IV catheter but not moving to take Dick’s arm yet. Just waiting, with calm posture and steady eyes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dick blinks at him, takes in a shuddering breath. “He--he says. He says that everyone has favorite movies for different things, and if you ask someone when they’re sad, you’ll get a different answer than when they’re really happy. So you have to ask them a lot of times, if you want to know the different sides of what they actually love.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s pretty smart,” John says. “Your dad sounds great.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Dick croaks, while tears fall again and run into Bruce’s hands, hot and damp, along his fingers, along Dick’s curls. “The best.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I need to put an IV in your arm right here, all right? So we can give you medicine and fluids if you need them. And Amanda is going to get your ankle nice and stablized so it doesn’t hurt so much when we move you.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“‘Kay,” Dick is whispering, and then just like at the hospital, everything moves very quickly from there. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dick is as ready as they’re going to get him, they’ve walked him through what the plan is, and Amanda and John and an EMT from a second ambulance are all ready to get Dick on a backboard and ready to move. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ready on your count,” Ashley says, locking eyes with Bruce. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Right. He’s holding c-spine. That makes him the lead. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’ve got you, Dick,” he says, firmly, making sure Dick hears the confidence in his voice. “Barrel roll to the right, on three. One, two, three.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A couple minutes later, Dick’s strapped down and secure and starting to panic. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re gonna stay, right?” he’s saying, fingers scrabbling a little like he’s trying to grab for Bruce. “You said you wouldn’t leave. You said you’d stay here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I--” Bruce starts, then breaks off. He had run for the stage just wanting to--to what? Get the kid down? See if there was anything, possibly, he could do to still help? Make the nightmare stop? Give the kid his coat?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dr. Wayne is kneeling on a stage yards away from two body bags and a crime scene. Dr. Wayne has taken care of an injured child, Dr. Wayne has done his job and ought to go home and wash off and hug Alfred and have a mug of soup before bed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce is on cold concrete on a wet night with blurry lights and blurry thoughts and a thousand sounds that don’t make sense in any language he knows, and there’s a coat wrapping around his shoulders that’s too big, and too dark, and unfamiliar, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>warm</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Bruce is floating and shivering and there is a coat that someone has wrapped him in, and it’s the only thing real that he can find in this night. Bruce pulls it up over his head and pulls it tight around his knees and doesn’t feel the concrete under him anymore until there’s a voice he knows and hands that know </span>
  <em>
    <span>him, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and a face full of tears and a sleeping cap at its edges that Bruce sees and knows </span>
  <em>
    <span>home</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dick doesn’t have a face coming. Dick is alone. Dick is hurt and alone with strangers, and where is the manager, where is the director, where is Dick’s favorite toy, where is Bruce’s coat? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You work at Gotham General, right?” John says. “We could give you a lift.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And just like that, he knows. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, buddy,” Bruce says, softly, resting a few fingers gently on Dick’s hair, behind the forehead strap. “I’ll stay for now. Gotta help you get the good jello while you’re at the hospital, right? I know where all the best jello and crackers are. But you can’t tell the nurses.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dick’s fingers still, clutching the loosened fabric of his cut-open costume instead, and Ashley quickly pulls a couple blankets over him as they get ready to head out of the building, tucking them down securely and brushing one hand over his before she makes sure the IV line is still free to move. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I won’t,” Dick promises. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay, we’re secure,” Ashley says. “Let’s roll.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce strides alongside the stretcher as they head out past the crowds, past the police, the fire truck, the reporters and cameras and the still-lit lightbulbs of the sign in front of the venue. He settles into the ambulance’s bucket seat for two seconds before Dick panics from being unable to see Bruce, and then he spends the whole ride on the bench instead, one hand staying steady on Dick’s chest while he and John hang the saline and push some pain meds and get one last set of vitals before they arrive at the ER. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s with Dick for the long waits, for the questions from grown ups, and grown ups, and more grown ups, remembers how that was when it was his turn years ago. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sneaks Dick three extra packets of graham crackers. Dick snorts through his tears and tiredly forces Bruce to eat one. Selina finds him later, when Dick is asleep, knocked out by a mix of exhaustion and pain meds and a tiny bit of Ativan, and forces him to eat Alfred’s packed meal, as well. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alfred knows, of course. Alfred always knows. Usually before Bruce knows, himself. </span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>“Alfie,” Bruce whispers, where he sits on the kitchen counter, legs dangling barefoot against cabinet wood and shirtsleeves rolled up and his head tipped forward against his second fathers’ chest like he’s eight and crying in a hug again, even though he’s twenty eight and a man and well capable of standing on his own feet like a normal human being. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My dear boy,” Alfred says back, gentle as ever. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think he needs me,” Bruce says. “Am I being presumptuous? Is that stupid?” He closes his eyes and tips his head a little further, and Alfred’s hand slides its way up to rub gently at the base of his hair. “I think I need </span>
  <em>
    <span>him</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mm,” Alfred says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m young,” Bruce says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And I’m a doctor. I work terrible hours.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You do. So do many parents.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not--good lord, Alfred, I can’t be a parent. What am I thinking. I can’t--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Breathe, my boy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce breathes. Then he breathes some more. He breathes until his mind is clear, until he’s honest with himself, until he can lift his head and look Alfred in the eyes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want to--I want to try,” Bruce says. “I don’t know how to do any of this. I don’t even know who to call. But I can’t just let him go and know he’s out in the system on his own with only strangers and--and I know I’m a stranger, but he trusted me, and I can’t let him--I told him I’d stay, and I think I mean it, Alfred.” Bruce blinks. “I don’t know what to do. But I have to do it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And that,” Alfred says, stepping back to allow Bruce room to slide off the counter, wiggle his toes against the cold kitchen tile, “is how all new parents feel. I think you will do quite all right, Master Bruce. Shall I fetch you the number for family services tonight?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce stares at him for a moment. “You don’t think I’m crazy,” he says, flatly. “You don’t have a problem with this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Master Bruce,” Alfred says. “If I had a problem with the care of young boys who have lost their parents, I would not have stayed to take you in all those years ago. I daresay the manor could use another person in it, especially when that person has a need that both of us are uniquely suited to address.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t think I’m going to mess this up?” Bruce says, voice very small. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course you’re going to mess it up,” Alfred says, bold and firm and with a hint of a smile. “You’re </span>
  <em>
    <span>human</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Every parent does with their child sometimes. But do I believe you will always learn, and change, and do it better the next time? I do, Master Bruce. That, I absolutely do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce starts making calls that night. </span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>A few months later, after long talks across hospital beds and thousands of texts on their phones and several house inspections and interviews and more paperwork than Bruce ever wants to see again outside of tax season and the quarterly Wayne Enterprises meetings, Dick finally, finally comes home, to the manor, to Alfred, to Bruce, and they’re now something new. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A tangle, for sure. Of brambles and broken glass and molehills that are hidden till they’re stepped in and injure an ankle, but also of open arms and late nights with hot drinks to ward of nightmares and an enormous well of understanding and patience and forgiveness and love, over and over as many times as needed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce doesn’t know what he’s doing. Neither did Alfred, once upon a time. And Dick is no young Bruce, and Bruce doesn’t pretend to be anything like Dick’s parents, because he can’t be and never will be able to replace all of that. But he can be himself. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He can be who he is, and help Dick keep becoming who he is, and neither of them will have back their </span>
  <em>
    <span>befores,</span>
  </em>
  <span> and that will always hurt in deep nights and old photos and small moments of turning to tell someone something and remembering that they will never, ever be there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But they’re taking their first steps into something that’s new, that can be good enough and </span>
  <em>
    <span>better </span>
  </em>
  <span>without trying to replace the old. And they’ll build this together, too. </span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>“Holy moly, B,” Dick says, staring up with an open mouth at the chandelier over the entrance hall. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know,” Bruce replies, sticking his hands in his pockets after he sets Dick’s only bag down. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Bruce,” Dick says, very seriously. “You’re rich as </span>
  <em>
    <span>sin</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce laughs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dickie,” he says, more quietly now. “Hey. I have something for you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You already gave me, like. Your whole terrifyingly large </span>
  <em>
    <span>house</span>
  </em>
  <span>. You didn’t need to get me anything.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wanted to, though,” Bruce says. “I know I gave you the new Pokemon game back in the hospital, so that wasn’t--I mean. I don’t know if anything else came out that you’d like to play now, we can go look at the store together if you want--but. Well. I remember when we were talking that first night...you were talking about your favorite animal being elephants, and your case worker says that they lost some of your things somewhere in the shuffle and--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“For heaven’s sake, Bruce,” Alfred says, coming around the corner. “Just give the poor boy his gift and be done with it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right,” says Bruce. “Here, Dick.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dick has the wrapping paper ripped off in seconds, and for the first time all morning, stands completely still, staring with a completely indecipherable expression on his face as he stares down at the fuzzy, raggedy, clearly hand-made stuffed elephant in his hands. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You found--” he chokes out. “You found Zitka?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce shrugs a little. “I know she was important to you, so I made some calls, asked around…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span><em>“Bruce,”</em> Dick says, as a couple of tears leak down his cheeks, and then he squeezes the elephant to his face and his chest and takes one single deep breath before turning and launching himself straight into Bruce’s arms. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you,” Dick says into Bruce’s sweater. “She’s--my mom made--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he can’t get any more out than that, but he hasn’t complained much through the whole process since his parents died, through the hospital stay and the neck brace and the ankle cast and the foster home, through the interviews and therapists and uncertainty. And Bruce doesn’t say a whole lot, as a general rule, and he’s not as good with words as he’d like to be, and he has absolutely no clue how to raise a child. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he got this part right. And he can hug the boy that’s in his arms right now, while Alfred gives him a nod and quietly snaps a few photos. And he figures that really, at the end of the day, maybe they don’t have to know what to do, maybe they don’t have to be ready. Maybe they’re just going to do the things anyway, and find the path on the way there. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s got Alfred, and Dick’s got him, and they’ve all got each other and time and the determination to make this work. He thinks that maybe, probably, they’re going to be just fine. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>drink water, eat something even if it's just a single oreo or whatever, take your meds, check in with your body, and get rest if you need it! you're doing great and I'm proud of you. good job making it through another day! &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Jason</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Bruce is physically incapable of not emotionally attaching to these kids he finds. Featuring Jason Todd, Cooking Mama, and tantalizing hints of Bruce and Selina's backstories for good measure.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This chapter was way harder to write than the others bc there's honestly...a lot less medical detail in it? And way more emotion? Sorry it's not super medical this time, I do not control the story, I just said "Jason take the wheel" and then banged this out last night and this morning, and this is what y'all get lol</p><p><b>Content Warning</b>: Discussion of serious malnutrition and mentions of throwing up. This is not an eating disorder story. There is no mention of numbers for weight or height, everything is vague.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>They’re in the Thomas Wayne Memorial Clinic after hours, just the two of them, Bruce and Leslie going on their semi-regular clean-out-the-storage-room-holy-god-how-does-it-even-get-like-this-we-JUST-organized-it-last-season-didn’t-we crusade. Singing along to Queen at the top of their lungs, forgetting to stop for a late dinner until Alfred calls to scold them both and remind them he packed quesadillas, getting into the usual casual tongue depressor tag war, and in Leslie’s case, going absolutely buckwild with the label maker. As usual. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then Bruce opens the back door to the dumpster, garbage bags swinging from one arm and a pile of broken down cardboard boxes in the other, and nearly trips over a scrawny, sharp-eyed kid. And just like that, Bruce’s life flips inside out and upside down </span>
  <em>
    <span>all over again</span>
  </em>
  <span> faster than he can blink. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not that he </span>
  <em>
    <span>realizes </span>
  </em>
  <span>it, at the time, but he’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>him</span>
  </em>
  <span>. It’s just how these things </span>
  <em>
    <span>go</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Give Bruce a few more years, a few more kids, he’ll start to get a bit more self-aware. But right now, on cracked and crumbling wet asphalt shining in the light from a dirty, yellowed flood light that’s older than God, probably, all Bruce thinks is </span>
  <em>
    <span>kid</span>
  </em>
  <span> and </span>
  <em>
    <span>what?</span>
  </em>
  <span> and </span>
  <em>
    <span>there’s probably a problem--</span>
  </em>
  <span>and problems are his job, and the kid is still glaring, and Bruce really doesn’t want to step on him, so. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce catches himself on the tips of his toes, doing the standard </span>
  <em>
    <span>oh-shit</span>
  </em>
  <span> dance of balance-catching like a drunk ballet dancer. Then drops the garbage bags on the ground and drops the cardboard against the brick wall and drops himself into a squat on his heels a couple inches away from the kid, and simply says, “Hi.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The kid stares back for a couple of seconds. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hi,” they say, looking up through ragged too-long bangs, and Bruce automatically notes that their voice sounds hoarse, which is maybe normal for them but maybe Not Good. Especially considering that it’s winter. And this is an alley. At night. On the ground. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m Bruce,” says Bruce. “Um, are you here for--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A car hit me,” the kid says, completely calm, and Bruce just--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce blinks. “A car?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The kid gives him an unimpressed look. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right,” Bruce says, shaking his head a little. “I heard you. Sorry. A car hit you, when? Tonight?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The kid nods. Bruce doesn’t bother to hide the visual scan he’s doing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Does anything hurt in particular? What made you come to the clinic?” Then Bruce frowns a little. “Why the back door?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My arm,” the kid replies immediately, confirming Bruce’s suspicion that one was being cradled a little too close to the chest. “My arm, because of the car,” the kid says again, still staring at Bruce, deadpan. “And it’s safer back here from the guys who want to grab kids who look like they won’t be able to run fast enough. I ain’t stupid.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course not,” Bruce tells the kid automatically, sounding half-offended on their behalf. “Listen, I’m guessing you’re here for Leslie. She’s inside. I’m a doctor too, I work at Gotham General, and I’m helping her out tonight. Can I carry you inside?” The odds are fifty-fifty that this kid, clearly used to living on the streets, will either kick Bruce between the legs and try to bolt at the offer alone, or take Bruce up on it even though he’s a strange adult because the kid’s actually feeling worse than they’re letting on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The kid glances over at the garbage bags. “Don’t you have to finish taking out the trash?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That can wait.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>You’re hurt. I’m worried. It’s literally garbage. You’re a child who needs to come in and get warm. </span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>The kid looks him up and down once, jaw tightening a little--Bruce can see the tendons in the kid’s neck, that’s a little concerning, but maybe fine, he’ll just have to see…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure,” the kid says, after a couple seconds, moving to shrug and then aborting the attempt almost instantly with a sharp sucked-in breath. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Easy,” Bruce murmurs on instinct. “You’re okay. Just keep that arm held close, and I’m gonna slide arms under your knees and back, okay? Hang on.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce rolls smoothly up to standing, and his first thought is a surprised, alarmed, </span>
  <em>
    <span>this kid is way too thin.</span>
  </em>
  <span> They hadn’t looked </span>
  <em>
    <span>large</span>
  </em>
  <span>, curled up on the ground by the door, but Bruce can feel way more bone than he should be able to, even for a probable street kid. How is this child not hypothermic already? How long have they been going without food? Bruce doesn’t have answers. Just more questions, every second, and that’s not helping anything right now, so he needs to </span>
  <em>
    <span>focus</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He dips his whole upper body forward and twists around a little to get the door code punched in with his elbow, because he shouldn’t have had practice doing things like that, but he has, and at least it comes in handy for times like now. The kid actually makes a noise that sounds impressed while Bruce uses his elbow and foot to kick the door open and sweeps them through into the old tile hallway and rush of warm air. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Name?” Bruce asks, pleasantly, while he strides down the hall to where he remembers hearing Leslie belting out the chorus of Killer Queen a few minutes ago.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jason,” says the kid. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pronouns?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The kid’s head snaps up to stare at Bruce hard, and Bruce keeps his face carefully neutral. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I always ask,” he says, blandly. “I work with kids every day for a living. I think it’s only polite, to not assume. So, pronouns? Age?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m a boy,” Jason says, finally. “Twelve.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Twelve. Definitely too light and too small in general for a healthy twelve. Whatever is going on with this boy, it’s not recent. Or at least, not </span>
  <em>
    <span>only</span>
  </em>
  <span> recent. Bruce is pretty sure the injured arm would disagree with his previous statement. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where are your parents?” Bruce sticks his head in the storage room and huffs quietly when Leslie is, of course, nowhere in sight. He steps away from the doorjamb and heads further down the hall, towards the main part of the clinic. He needs to get the kid to one of the exam rooms, anyway. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason snorts. “Where do you think?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce thinks maybe gambling, or maybe high as hell and not home, or maybe not alive at all. Bruce thinks maybe a lot of things.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know,” he tells Jason, setting him down as gently as possible on an exam table. “But clearly they aren’t available right now, or you’d have gone to them.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason reacts like a cat on tin foil when he first crunches the white paper underneath him, and only settles down properly once he’s poked it a couple of times and checked out where it’s coming from.Bruce presses the button on the counter that will send an alert to Leslie’s phone with the room number, and then tugs out a pair of exam gloves from one of the boxes on the wall. He doesn’t miss Jason watching his every move, and Bruce thinks, </span>
  <em>
    <span>this kid is a broken-winged hawk</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He firmly reminds himself to keep his hands where Jason can see them at all times. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have any number I can call for you?” Bruce asks, casually, tapping the keyboard to wake up the monitor and log in to their chart system. “Parents, guardian, anyone who can authorize care?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Jason says, quietly, and Bruce can’t quite tell what the underlying tone is in his voice. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay,” says Bruce, in the tone that’s almost-a-sigh. “I’m. You understand that we’re mandated reporters,” he starts, awkwardly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No!” Jason nearly snarls. “They said this place won’t rat anyone out. I only came here because you guys are the only ones who wouldn’t need parent signatures or whatever. I’m taking care of myself, I’ve got it handled, I just need help with my arm and then I’ll be gone.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jason,” Bruce says helplessly, hands spread out wide, palms up, “we don’t turn in </span>
  <em>
    <span>adults </span>
  </em>
  <span>unless they’re an indisputable danger to themselves or others when we treat them, but kiddo, minors are a different case--”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Fuck</span>
  </em>
  <span> you,” Jason snaps, voice up almost half an octave, and shoves off the table with his good arm, landing with a quick crouch and a grimace he can’t manage to hide. He takes a couple of breaths before opening his eyes, and stares directly at Bruce. They’re hard, furious, hinting at coiled danger. “Forget it, I’m out, I’ll take care of it myself.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His eyes, Bruce notes, are also </span>
  <em>
    <span>afraid</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce takes a deep breath. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Take care of</span>
  <em>
    <span> what </span>
  </em>
  <span>yourself?” comes a sharp, familiar voice, and Bruce almost grins when Jason straightens involuntarily. Leslie tends to have that effect on people. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s stalking into the room and tugging on gloves from the wall holder in half a second, peering over her reading glasses at Jason with absolute laser focus. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Um,” Jason says, sounding far more uncertain than Bruce ever has heard him so far. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m Dr. Thompkins,” Leslie says. “I’m in charge of this clinic, and it looks like you’re my newest patient. Happy to have you. What’s your name?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jason Todd,” spills from the boy’s lips so automatically that even he is caught by surprise. He doesn’t even have time to scowl before Leslie is asking him further questions in her firm, irresistible way that makes grown mobsters falling into line every day, and within seconds Jason is somehow back on the exam table, answering questions with a slightly bewildered look on his face and watching Leslie non-stop as she narrates everything she’s doing with the stethoscope that Bruce swears hasn’t left her neck in the whole twenty-eight years he’s known her on this Earth. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce logs Jason’s answers into their system as quickly as he can type them, and his brain is a constant litany of </span>
  <em>
    <span>too thin, too thin, too thin, </span>
  </em>
  <span>because there is </span>
  <em>
    <span>hungry </span>
  </em>
  <span>and there is </span>
  <em>
    <span>dangerously underweight</span>
  </em>
  <span> and this boy looks like he’s been starving for </span>
  <em>
    <span>weeks</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not going to a shelter,” Jason says, anger and real terror tangled up into a thornbush all wound through his voice. “I won’t, I’ll run, I won’t go with social services, everyone knows you go with them and you end up--you end up </span>
  <em>
    <span>disappearing, </span>
  </em>
  <span>or beat to hell and running away again anyway--this is </span>
  <em>
    <span>Gotham.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>And Bruce closes his eyes, taking a moment to feel the pain, because as much as he’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>trying,</span>
  </em>
  <span> as much as they’re all trying to fix this city from the top down and the bottom up and the inside out and every which way--with money and programs and system-level change--Jason is, to some extent, right. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Half of the system is a train wreck after years of underfunding and overcrowding, and the other half is a front for human trafficking and drug cartels, mostly within Gotham’s poorest and most vulnerable neighborhoods. Jason’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>right</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce and Leslie know who’s legitimate. </span>
  <em>
    <span>They </span>
  </em>
  <span>know they do, but Jason has no reason to trust them, and even less to believe them, period. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Jason’s also clearly not okay, and they clearly have to do something about that. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Dammit.</span>
  </em>
  <span> This is. Okay. This is fine, Bruce can sort this out. He’s Batman. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It </span>
  <em>
    <span>is </span>
  </em>
  <span>nighttime, technically. This is supposed to be his job. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay,” he says, hands up in a placating gesture at both Jason and Leslie. “Leslie, we need to check him out first, before anything, and we can talk after. And Jason...I promise you, I won’t let anyone bad take you anywhere. I’m a foster parent myself, and I’m on several city boards. I know the system. I won’t let you slip through cracks.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason is hunched against the wall, as far from Leslie’s outstretched hand as he can get, face sunken and nearly gray in the fluorescent lighting that provides no more artificial warmth to help him keep up the facade. He glares at Bruce, looking ready to claw his way out of the room like a cornered dog and simultaneously so tired he could cry. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason needs </span>
  <em>
    <span>help</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He needs it so badly that every inch of his body is screaming for it right now. Bruce can see him </span>
  <em>
    <span>shake </span>
  </em>
  <span>from trying to hold himself still and ready to flee. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why should I trust either of you?” Jason demands. He sounds nearly frantic, eyes flickering between both of them now, counting hands that they carefully keep steady and in view. “You’re--you’re gonna call the cops on me, and the social workers, and I’ve done that, and I’m </span>
  <em>
    <span>not going back again,</span>
  </em>
  <span> I’m better on my own. I </span>
  <em>
    <span>won’t.”</span>
  </em>
  <span> He has to stop and pant for several seconds, has to catch his breath after just a few sentences, and that’s another drop in Bruce’s rapidly-filling worry bucket. “You--you’re a </span>
  <em>
    <span>foster parent, woo hoo,</span>
  </em>
  <span> that doesn’t mean anything, you could be just like any other old pervert in this city--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not,” Bruce says, calm and steady. “I’m a doctor at the hospital, a pediatric surgeon, and I have a son a few years older than you who I adopted when his parents died. I’ve been a foster parent ever since, and I usually am an emergency placement for kids who have medical needs until a more permanent family can be found for them.” He pulls over the rolling stool with his foot and sits down till he’s below Jason’s eye level, and signals Leslie to step away and sit down in one of the old chairs by the wall. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jason,” Bruce says. He looks the boy over, this shaking, scrawny kid, with limp hair and a dirty beanie and ripped clothes and a look in his eyes that Bruce has seen far, far too many times in both his lines of work. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Bruce,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> Jason throws back, challenging him, mocking just a little. Bruce doesn’t rise to the bait. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Before </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything </span>
  </em>
  <span>else,” Bruce tells him, careful and steady and very, very honest--he’s projecting it however he can, he’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>bleeding </span>
  </em>
  <span>honesty from every pore right now--“Dr. Thompkins and I are </span>
  <em>
    <span>doctors</span>
  </em>
  <span>. We’re here to help you. You’ve been hurt, and our first priority is to check that and fix you up. Then--and I’m going to be very honest with you right now--I think you need to go to the hospital.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“No,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> says Jason . Less angry now. More tired.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” says Bruce, firmly. “You’re not healthy right now, Jason, you need help. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Surviving</span>
  </em>
  <span> doesn’t mean </span>
  <em>
    <span>okay</span>
  </em>
  <span>. If you're as sick as I’m guessing you are, you’re going to need to go, and it’s not debatable.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t have enough </span>
  <em>
    <span>money,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> Jason says, and his voice cracks on the last word. Something in him must have been wanting to let this out, because all of a sudden he slumps against the wall and table, tension falling out of his posture so suddenly it looks like he’s a puppet with strings cut. Bruce lurches forward a few inches to catch him, until he realizes Jason isn’t actually falling. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He opens his mouth to tell Jason that he doesn’t need to worry about the money, that he’s a minor. Bruce has even specifically set up funds for this exact kind of situation. But Jason, it seems, is just getting started. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not </span>
  <em>
    <span>stupid,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> he says, voice thickening by the second while they watch his eyes get red around the rims. “I’m not dumb, I know that I shouldn’t be living on the streets like this, I want--I want to go back to school! I </span>
  <em>
    <span>liked</span>
  </em>
  <span> school, but they threw me in foster care when my mom got sick, and it was—really bad. And then she died and I couldn’t get out, but it wasn’t getting better, and so I </span>
  <em>
    <span>left</span>
  </em>
  <span>. And it sucks, being on the street, I miss beds and showers and my books and everything, but I can’t go </span>
  <em>
    <span>back, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and they caught me twice and just put me with even worse people, and the last ones were gonna make me do drug runs and I didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>want</span>
  </em>
  <span> to help sell people drugs, and--and </span>
  <em>
    <span>every</span>
  </em>
  <span> time I try going somewhere it always makes it worse, so I stopped, except for the food, because--” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He chokes on a couple of sobs, here, and hardly even notices when Leslie puts a box of Kleenex next to him on the table before backing away quietly. Jason looks exhausted just from this outburst to the point where Bruce is almost wondering if he’ll pass out right here and now. But Jason continues, more quietly, in an even more unsteady voice. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I go around to dumpsters by all the restaurants, digging out their leftovers, you know?” he tells them. Bruce nods. He does know, he’s done that, he’s been there. “‘Cause they always have so many. And as long as you don’t get caught, it’s okay. And the shelters and food pantries and libraries, they give out food too, so I just kind of rotate, and buy what I can when I got money from odd jobs or some random person. But ever since mom got sick--she started chemo, and then I had to leave, and then every time I ate, I kind of got sick. But not bad. I thought I was just stressed. And then I didn’t eat much at all, and it was mostly okay, but now it doesn’t matter how much I eat, I—I’m </span>
  <em>
    <span>always</span>
  </em>
  <span> sick and it always hurts and I know that’s not good but I </span>
  <em>
    <span>can’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> go to the hospital because we never had money in the first place and--” He gulps, looking between Bruce and Leslie, then closes his eyes. “I’m really </span>
  <em>
    <span>tired,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> he says, hoarsely. “I don’t have anywhere to go. They said if I ran away again I couldn’t go to a normal foster placement anymore, because I’m a problem kid or whatever, and I get it it—I mean, I am— I swear I keep myself safe. And I get enough food. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I can take care of myself,</span>
  </em>
  <span> but—it doesn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>work</span>
  </em>
  <span>. I don’t know why I keep getting worse. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just want it to </span>
  <em>
    <span>stop.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce feels like his chest is shattered into a spiderweb, cracked like safety glass, tangled up like the headphones he always regrets tossing into the bottom of his work backpack. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay,” he says, softly. Jason’s exhausted, puffy eyes flicker back over to him. “Okay,” Bruce repeats. “Jason. I hear you. Are you listening to me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason nods.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dr. Thompkins and I are going to check you out here,” Bruce says, as gently as he can. “We’ll do what we can for your arm, and then I’m going to take you to the hospital right afterwards. I’m going to go with you. I’ll make sure that you get settled in there, and we’re </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> going to call any police, I promise. We’ll have to bring in a hospital social worker, but I’m used to dealing with the system, and they know me, and we are </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> going to let anything bad happen to you this time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason stares at him like he wants so badly to believe him, but can’t quite manage it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Would it help,” Bruce asks, “if I told you that I am personally friends with the Police Comissioner, and that he is currently trying to hunt down every single group in Gotham that deals in human trafficking or exploits children in the foster system? And that I guarantee you he’d want to talk with you as soon as possible to get your help in making that happen, and that he is very, very serious about making sure kids get placed with real, safe foster families?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He is?” Jason asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He is.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jason, honey,” Leslie says. “Dr. Wayne here is one of the best, most trustworthy people I know in the whole world. You trust me because you know everything I do at this clinic, right? That I really care about these people and these neighborhoods?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason nods.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well,” says Leslie. “You trust me. And I trust </span>
  <em>
    <span>him.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>Jason finally agrees to go to the hospital. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He lies down on the exam table slowly and lets them do what they need--the questions, the checks, and Bruce fully admits to the way tangled vines unwound from his lungs when they confirmed that yes, Jason did get hit by a car tonight, but by “hit” Jason meant he got </span>
  <em>
    <span>bumped </span>
  </em>
  <span>by the corner of a </span>
  <em>
    <span>bumper</span>
  </em>
  <span>--which he laughed about as he told them, of course, because of “intended uses” and all that. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Kids</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Bruce swears to god--and had mostly gotten knocked off-balance into some concrete steps in front of the corner tea shop down the street. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just someone in an old junker speeding and taking turns too sharp late at night. That was all. Jason isn’t particularly bothered by the turn of events, aside from being mad his arm is out of commission. Probably because he sees worse on the streets often, and likely at his previous homes, too. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce doesn’t tell him he’s lucky it was his elbow that cracked and not his head. That the car wasn’t going a few miles per hour higher, that Jason wasn’t a couple inches further to the side. That he hadn’t been grabbed on his way to the clinic as an easy target. That it’s the most gossamer line between a simple bump to the head with no consequences and a TBI that changes a life forever, and Jason’s forehead scrape could have been so much worse, and no one would have known for too long. That he’s lucky that he could get himself here, because if it had been worse, who would have been looking for this kid in a city of millions--this kid ghosting from place to place, who would have been searching all night, frantic, trying to find this boy who was on the ground, hurt, needing someone to--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leslie smacks Bruce’s arm when he gets too distracted, and while she carefully cleans and bandages one of Jason’s scrapes, Bruce tells Jason none of these thoughts. But he runs the kid through neurological checks once, and then again after another few minutes, and Leslie shoots Bruce a look without any real annoyance. Jason doesn’t question anything. Just lets them move him, treat him, do what they needdis. He watches, and he tracks, and he’s brilliantly, beautifully </span>
  <em>
    <span>alive </span>
  </em>
  <span>to do it. For the first time in too long, Jason lets someone else take the reins for a little while.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce can tell he’s still wary, though, and if Jason </span>
  <em>
    <span>isn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> still mostly convinced that this is a mistake, that he’s going to end up burned and running and on his own again, Bruce will eat his stethoscope. Trauma doesn’t go away in one conversation. That feeling of knowing the other shoe will drop, it just will, because it did before--that feeling doesn’t go away after someone promises things will work out. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It didn’t for Bruce. It didn’t for Dick. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It takes time, it takes work, it takes event after event proving that things can, in fact, be okay, before a brain will believe it. Bruce isn’t deluding himself into thinking Jason actually believes he’s going to get properly helped.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the boy is so tired, both physically and mentally, that the first instance of adults sounding like they genuinely want to help in a long, long time seems to have absolutely done him in for the moment. Jason’s barely managing to stay awake while they check his vitals, his definitely-fractured elbow, the scrapes and bruises and old, old scars that make Bruce wish, just a little, that he could throw a punch at certain people without risking the hands he has a responsibility to keep strong and steady for his patients. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce lets Leslie tackle the arm splinting, and he gets busy calling Alfred, updating him, telling him what to tell Dick, and finishing with a love you, call you soon, I’ll be home when I can. Then he catches sight of Jason, who’s watching Bruce through half-open eyes with an expression that looks half guilty and half longing, not even making any complaints while Leslie carefully manipulates his swollen, bruised arm and steadily murmurs apologies. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce hits redial and smiles when Alfred picks up before it even gets to the second ring. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hi, Alfie,” he says. “On second thought, could you run a bag over to the front desk for me before you turn in for the night? Some toiletries, one of the spare bears, and however many books you can get to fit. Some classics, a little variety, maybe? Throw in our older set of Percy Jackson books, actually, that’ll be perfect. Thanks.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After he ends the call, he hits </span>
  <em>
    <span>print </span>
  </em>
  <span>on all the information they’ve gotten from Jason that the hospital will need, picks up his handwritten sheet of notes and things he thinks they ought to check first, starting with a full blood panel the second he gets Jason through those doors. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then he turns to Jason. “I figured you might like something to read while you’re there,” he says, warmly, while Jason stares at him, slumped in a sitting position on the end of the table while Leslie bundles him in at least three fleece blankets and smooths her fingers one last time over the butterfly bandaid on one side of his forehead. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Read?” Jason asks, brows pinching together. Not like he’s questioning reading, specifically, more like he’s questioning the whole situation. And Bruce. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” says Bruce, while he tugs on his down coat that Leslie grabbed from where he’d chucked it in the lobby on his way in earlier. “You said you missed your books. I thought maybe you’d like some that weren’t from the tattered collection at the hospital that about a million elementary schoolers touch every day.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason blinks at him, looking floored, and then slowly, slowly, a small, real smile creeps its way onto his face for the first time since Bruce nearly tripped right over him in the back alley. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Books,” Jason snorts. “Yeah. I’d--I’d like to read some books again. I’ve only got three in my stash right now. They’ve gotten kind of old.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then books you’ll get,” Bruce promises. “As soon as we get you to a room at the hospital.”</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>Two days later, Bruce knocks on the door, waits for Jason’s come in, ‘s not like I can lock it, and then walks over to slump into one of the spots on the couch next to Jason’s bed, thumping his head back against the windowsill while Jason looks him over, top to toe, with a critical eye. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What happened to</span>
  <em>
    <span> you,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> Jason says, finger tucked lightly in the crease between book pages, holding his place while he’s plunked the book down on his covers. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce grunts, kicking one foot limply at the backpack he dropped halfway on top of one of his clogs. He should move it. It’s uncomfortable. But it’s so much work to sit back up and lean over and like, actually grasp an object and </span>
  <em>
    <span>tug</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay,” Jason says, dry and sarcastic and already making Bruce want to crack a grin. “I’ve known you for like, thirty seconds, so sue me for not being fluent in the dictionary of your caveman noises and their intricate linguistic histories. You gotta give me more to work with. What is this, kindergarten?</span>
  <em>
    <span> Can you use your big boy words, Dr. Wayne.”</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Brat,” Bruce says, fondly. He heaved a sigh and hauls himself forward to flip open the backpack and rummage around before pulling out a smaller bag and tossing it up to Jason, who loses his place in the book to try and catch it. “Dick sent over his old DS and some games. Said he thinks you’ll like Kitchen Mom, or something like that? He’ll be by after practice this evening, probably not long after I leave.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Cooking Mama?” Jason says, sounding more excited than Bruce has heard him in at least half a day. “He’s lending me his DS? Oh my god, I haven’t gotten to play anything in </span>
  <em>
    <span>ages</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of course it’s Cooking Mama. Bruce knows what Dick liked playing. Pokemon, Cooking Mama, Sims Pets, he got roped into trying them all himself. He always keeps tabs on what makes Dick happy. But he also has a reputation to maintain, and had been kind of hoping to make Jason squirm with the butchered name. He doesn’t mind, though. Seeing Jason too excited to even care is better. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason has gone quiet, all of a sudden, and Bruce snaps out of his post-shift haze to catch Jason looking at him with an odd expression and the DS case held close.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you sure he doesn’t want these, for now?” Jason asks, glancing at the bag in his hands. “I mean. They’re his games, and you guys don’t need to keep--coming around, or bringing things for me to do, or whatever. I’m fine. I’m okay on my own, you’ve gotta be busy.” He frowns, for a second, and then plasters a grin on his face and gestures at Bruce, flicking his casted, IV-free hand up and down. “I mean. Look at you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey,” Bruce rumbles. “Stop moving that arm so much. And I’d like to see you finish out </span>
  <em>
    <span>your </span>
  </em>
  <span>shift with an eight hour surgery and then look as good as all this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason snorts. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jason,” Bruce continues, leaning forward, elbows on his knees and eyes locked on Jason’s. “Of course we don’t have to keep coming to see you. But we want to. I like you, and I worry about you, and I want to make sure you’re doing okay. Because I think you’re important. You don’t have to trust me, or believe me, but I’m going to keep coming anyway. You’re not going to fall through the cracks again. I promised.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“People promise a lot of things,” Jason says, looking over at his IV pump. “They aren’t usually good at following through.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce hums. “That’s true,” he says. “But some people do, and everyone can get better at it. I can’t speak for anyone else, not even Dick. They’re their own people. But Jason, I promise you--I, personally, take my promises very seriously.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” says Jason, looking at him appraisingly, maybe almost a little approvingly, as he sets down the DS case and lifts the book again, clumsily starting to flick through pages at a weird angle with his casted arm. “I can tell.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce thinks that’s all of it, then, once Jason finds the right page and stares hard at the book, eyes flickering over lines of text. Bruce knows a dismissal when he sees one, and also knows how to navigate ever-shifting moods--he works with kids all day, and their stressed-out parents almost more than that. Adults are just better at hiding their mood shifts and keeping things bottled up--till something breaks the bottle, and it all spills out. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That is all to say, Bruce has </span>
  <em>
    <span>carefully </span>
  </em>
  <span>taught himself to know when to push and when to just keep quiet, and Jason. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason is a boy who needs a lot of quiet. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So Bruce hums something quiet, barely audible, some tune from a show Dick’s been watching lately, and kicks off his clogs, flexing his toes up and down and relishing the freedom as he tugs off his compression socks. Then back into his old Birkenstocks his feet go, finally. And he’s a </span>
  <em>
    <span>doctor</span>
  </em>
  <span>, his brain screams at the horror of exposed toes in a clinical setting, but to hell with that. He’s a visitor, right now, even if he is still in scrub pants to go with his Gotham Knights hoodie. He’ll wear what he wants on this couch. It’s a free country, he’s a free man. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce tucks his clogs under the couch edge and pulls his bagged meal from the backpack, silently blessing Alfred for always looking out for him so well, and he’s about to take a bite of his first burrito when Jason suddenly speaks up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dr. Kyle came around last night,” he says, quietly. He doesn’t look over at Bruce, eyes still fixed on the book, even though they both know he’s not really reading. “She talked about you a lot. Said you spend way too much time at this place. And that you’re awesome playing with the little kids.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tell that to my back,” Bruce says. “I think it would like a break from the horsey rides.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason’s mouth flicks up into a grin for just a moment before it’s gone again. “That sounds like a you problem,” he tells Bruce. “She said you’re a good guy. We talked for a while. About stuff. Her life. You know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce does know. He knows enough. Not all, but enough. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Little tells, when they hang out outside of work; the way Selina doesn’t hand off certain cases until she’s absolutely sure that the city has sent one of the good social workers to take over, one that Selina trusts. Too-cheerful comments and asides during their work lunches and coffee runs over the years. Things thrown out in the laughing tones, the </span>
  <em>
    <span>wasn’t-that-a-funny-story</span>
  </em>
  <span>, the</span>
  <em>
    <span> if I make light enough of it, it wasn’t actually bad, and no one will be concerned or sad.</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce knows that’s a cue he ought to respect more. But Bruce isn’t the best, with social cues. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>knows </span>
  </em>
  <span>that. It’s part of why kids are always so much easier for him than the grown-ups are. He’s got all the etiquette of high society, he’s polite, he knows how to navigate a gala or a conference or an interview full of traps and pitfalls and hungry, clever journalists. But he’s unable to hide concern, or stay out of it when he sees someone in pain. He’s been that way since long before he ever had a </span>
  <em>
    <span>before </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>after </span>
  </em>
  <span>to divide his life into, an encyclopedic separation of years, of personality, of going from babbling all day to near-mute. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Selina drops these bread crumbs, when they talk, and she’s half hiding, half testing. And Bruce never leaves them alone. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She told him once, curled up on a spare gurney in a back hallway, leaned into his side in the middle of the night after they lost a little kid to just--just too many layers, too many months and months of being hurt to have the strength to live through the one last thing, the worst. She told him </span>
  <em>
    <span>I hate you when you don’t let me laugh it off, you know. You always--you always take those things and throw them under your spotlight, and you hold on to them until I actually look and see them in the light, for real, and I hate you for that. It hurts.</span>
  </em>
  <span> And he told her</span>
  <em>
    <span> I know,</span>
  </em>
  <span> and </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m sorry,</span>
  </em>
  <span> and they sat there a little longer in the half-lit back hall before she said, even more quietly,</span>
  <em>
    <span> I hate you then, but I love you, you know. You--most people don’t care enough to be willing to make someone hurt just because it’s what needs to happen. I hate when you do it, but I keep saying things because--it’s the only way I know how to make it real. You’re--you--you make everyone else see clearly the way you see clearly. I’m sorry I use you. But I love you for. You know. Always being that, for everyone who needs it. It must hurt you so much, Bruce. All the time.</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>And he’d pressed a kiss to her hair, that particular night, because this isn’t who they are, usually, but sometimes they can let themselves be...whatever they might be able to be, someday, if they’re both healthier, maybe. If they’re less busy, if things go down whatever paths they need to walk--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce pressed a soft, chaste kiss to her frizzy post-surgery hair, and tells her </span>
  <em>
    <span>It’s okay,</span>
  </em>
  <span> and </span>
  <em>
    <span>I just don’t want people to hurt longer if I can stop it,</span>
  </em>
  <span> and then they slid off the gurney and went their separate ways, and that was that. Until the next time. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looks at Jason, now, this too-small kid hunched over on the bed, with pale skin and sharp joints and an IV and a gauntlet of tests and strangers and wires and a heart monitor, now, because they’re that worried about his level of malnutrition. He looks at Jason, with all his hurt wrapped up in a bundle of sharp jabs and close-held arms and sharp words that try to keep people from getting to close, to avoid any fights at all, head them off at the pass, and all Bruce can see is a neon sign flashing </span>
  <em>
    <span>hurt, </span>
  </em>
  <span>flashing</span>
  <em>
    <span> please help, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and thinks of another kid, much healthier, more filled out, but on month four of having no words to share with the world at all, except for some here and there to one single man who never leaves, no matter how hard it gets each day.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He remembers how it felt to have an unshakable rock in Alfred, and how he still couldn’t make words come for anyone else, anywhere else, how he was trapped inside himself with all the pain and fury and confusion and grief that he had words for and didn’t have words for and couldn’t get any out either way. He looks at Jason and thinks </span>
  <em>
    <span>what a remarkable, resilient child. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Dick was resilient too, grieving and bouncing back and grieving and bouncing back, working his way through his own before and after from a foundation of love and a new home that was stable, and growing into someone strong and tempered and beautifully, wonderfully whole. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason hasn’t had any of that, really, aside from a good single mom that they’ve gotten to know through case worker reports and old documents and Jason’s occasional comments of what things they used to do, even without money, even without much to their names. He’s had a hell of a last year and a half, all told. And he’s still sitting here on a bed in sweatpants and a hospital gown, surrounded by adults he doesn’t know and doesn’t trust, who are doing tests and treatments that people hate on a good day, and he’s still able to read and be polite and not lash out all that much even though Bruce knows he’s got to be a boiling ball of screaming on the inside. And Bruce is just. Bruce is so proud, and sad, and hit so hard with a wave of needing to pull this kid in and never let him go that for a moment it feels like he can’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>breathe</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did talking with her help?” Bruce finally asks, carefully. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason glances over, then back down. He tugs his IV line around a little, gathering a little more slack from where it’s slipped past the bed rail, down towards the floor. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe,” he says. “I guess. She’s pretty cool.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She is.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She said. She said I could trust you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did she?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s...that’s very kind of her,” Bruce says, and honestly, coming from Selina. He’s floored. He’s earned it, as much as anyone can earn it. Which is to say, not at all. The fact that she’s been through what she has, and after the things they’ve walked through together, somehow has decided herself that he’s safe to try to trust, and even told that to one of her kids that she’s taken under her wing, here--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce hopes like hell he never does anything to make her regret it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And I think,” Jason adds, slowly, meeting Bruce’s gaze now. “That she’s maybe right.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You do,” Bruce says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not--not like, in a stupid way,” Jason says, quickly. “I’m not a baby. I’m not just gonna--I’m not gonna trust you with everything just like that, that’s stupid, that’s just asking to get stabbed in the back.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course.” Bruce nods. He’s done that, a couple times, in his life. When he was on his trip around the world, drifting between country and country and maybe wanting to die or maybe wanting to live. He knows what Jason means, and wishes Jason didn’t have to know it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But.” Jason says, and he’s twisting one of the blankets sent along. “You’ve done everything you said you would, so far. And you guys keep coming around, even though I’m just--some random stranger, and you all actually are as nice as you seem. And I guess. That’s pretty cool, you know. To see in real life again. You’re a lot like my mom was, kind of.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m,” starts Bruce, feeling a hard knot in his throat. “I’m glad that you think that, about us. We think you’re pretty neat too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, well,” and Jason flushes, just a little, at that. Bruce bets if the kid were healthy and sun-tanned like he ought to be--in the summers, anyway--he wouldn’t have been able to tell at all. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you want to trust me,” Bruce tells him, “I’m absolutely honored, and I promise I’ll do my best to never break that. But I want you to know that you don’t have to, Jason--you don’t ever have to trust me, and that’s okay. You don’t owe me. Or anyone in my family. I still want to get to know you and help you anyway, and it’s okay for you to not trust us until you’re ready, or ever.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason gives him an odd, unfamiliar look, his mouth twisting up on one side into a strange little smile. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s why,” he says, suddenly sounding louder and much more confident than he had for the past several minutes. “I do trust you. Or I want to, and I’m trying, at least, and. That was it. That’s why.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce frowns, trying to parse that statement, through his mouthful of cold burrito and old memories pressing in and emotions and the brain fog of too many hours on shift with too few naps in the past several days. “Sorry, kiddo, I don’t--I’m not really sure what you’re talking about.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason smiles for real. “I know. Don’t worry about it. Selina said you’d say that, too. Just take a nap, old man. You need one more than me, right now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey,” Bruce grumbles, because the conversation is clearly over, and he knows when it’s time to switch gears, switch modes, bring the mood back to light. “I’m not old. I’m not even thirty-five yet, and that’s not even old.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Whatever,” says Jason. “I’m going to read. Nap or something. Seriously.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“All right,” Bruce agrees. He kicks off his shoes and settles on the too-small couch, head pillowed on one of Alfred’s spare fleece blankets. “How’re you feeling, though, Jason?” He sees the boy shrug against his mountain of pillows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Same,” he says. “I mean, my arm is better. Dr. Zhang said the swelling’s started to go down. But none of the food went any better today. I threw up, like, four times.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry,” Bruce says, and Jason still, after two days, looks startled at the genuine feeling in Bruce’s tone. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s fine,” Jason tells him, after a couple of moments. “It’s not like it’s any worse than before you dragged me here. And at least I have stuff to clean up with, now. That’s better.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay,” Bruce sighs. “That’s. I’m glad. And I’m sorry it’s not better yet, but we’re going to figure this out. I promise.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, yeah.” Jason flaps his casted arm at him, again. “Go to sleep. I’ll throw a book at you if I need something, okay, just take a nap already.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So bossy,” Bruce tells him, but Jason’s right. He does need the sleep. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s out within minutes, lulled by the quiet sound of Jason’s blood pressure cuff inflating and the occasional page turning and finally, right as Bruce is fully slipping into sleep, the familiar tune of the DS starting up, and if he was any more awake, Bruce thinks he’d smile. </span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>A couple days later, Jason has more books on his rolling table, an increasing number of signatures on his cast, his second iron infusion going in, which he is complaining incessantly about, and finally, finally an answer. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Celiac disease,” Bruce says, triumphantly, storming into Jason’s room and dropping several pamphlets onto his lap. “Congratulations, Jason. We can fix this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” Jason blinks at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We got the results back from your biopsy,” Bruce tells him, with a smile. “It explains your sickness, your vitamin deficiencies, why you aren’t growing or keeping weight on even though you’ve been so determined to get yourself enough food, and even when we put you on a high calorie diet here. You have an autoimmune disease, Jason. Do you know what that means?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s when your body like, fights itself, right?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce hums. “More or less. There are a lot of different kinds, but ultimately they all involve your body attacking its own cells somewhere. And in your case, every time you eat something with gluten in it, your body has been hitting a panic alarm and trying to fight that, and in the process that constantly damages your small intestine. And that means that you haven’t been able to absorb the nutrients you need from your food.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason frowns. “So...gluten, like. Wheat? Like those kids who were allergic to wheat at school?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” says Bruce. “But not just wheat, gluten is a group of proteins. They’re in a few other things, too, like barley. Anything with gluten, your body is going to attack itself.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well that’s stupid.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce laughs. “It is. I’m sorry, it’s hard to not be able to eat gluten, but it is possible, and you’re going to have to do it. The good thing is, we know how to treat you now, and you’re going to start feeling better.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you sure,” Jason asks. “Like. This is actually going to work?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sure,” Bruce says, and he leans down a little, making sure Jason sees how serious he is. “It’s going to take time for your small intestine to heal, because there’s been a lot of damage for a long time. But as soon as your body stops attacking itself over gluten, that’ll start to heal, and your body will be able to start absorbing more of the food you </span>
  <em>
    <span>can </span>
  </em>
  <span>eat. It’s going to be okay.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Does this mean no more pizza?” Jason asks, glum. “Because I really like the pizza here. I mean, when I’m not throwing it up. It’s good.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ll have to get gluten-free crust,” Bruce tells him. “But you can still have pizza. I promise. We’re going to teach you, okay? You’ll learn how to eat and pick foods with a dietician, and you don’t have to do this on your own. We’re going to help you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay,” says Jason, and he tips his head back against the pillows. “Honestly, I’m ready to try anything if it’s really gonna work. I’m so tired of this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Bruce definitely hears the way his voice cracks, sees how Jason winces when his joints move, catches the way he’s tired to the bone right now even though he’s napped most of the times Bruce has popped in to check on him today. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know,” Bruce murmurs, reaching out to run his hand through Jason’s hair a few times. He counts it as a win when Jason only stiffens once, and doesn’t even bother opening his eyes this time. “I know you are. I’m so sorry you’ve dealt with this all alone for so long. Someone should have taken you seriously.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You did,” Jason says. “Right off the bat.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Someone before me,” Bruce corrects himself. “I’m sorry. I’m just glad we get to help now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You always want to help everyone,” Jason mumbles. His head is tipped ever so slightly into Bruce’s palm, now, which they both carefully ignore. “Dr. Wayne. Has anyone ever told you you’ve got a problem.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“All the time,” Bruce laughs. “But I don’t think that’s changing anytime soon. Get some more rest, kiddo,” he says, unthinkingly pressing a kiss to Jason’s forehead before pushing himself up to standing. “One of the nutritionists is coming by later to get you started. And Alfred is bringing the next Miss Marple DVD for you two to watch together while I’m working. You’ll want to be awake for that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Jason, miracle of miracles, doesn’t even react. Just smiles when Bruce pecks him absentmindedly, and then rolls onto his good side and shuffles down further into his blanket pile. “Thanks, Dr. Wayne,” he calls after him, one eye cracking open to watch Bruce slip out the door. “I’ll see you later? After your shift?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce catches himself in the doorway, one hand on the frame, and smiles at Jason. “Absolutely, kiddo. I’ll be here.” And then he’s out the door, off down the hallway to help whatever next kid he comes across and falls in love with in two seconds flat, and Jason closes his eyes, settles in. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s been a weird week. It’s been a bad one, some of the time. But Dr. Wayne keeps--keeps staying around, and it’s weird, and it’s nice, and his kid Dick is older but treats Jason like he’s actually someone cool, instead of just a middle schooler not worthy of his time, and their Alfred is just--the best, the actual best. And they’ve been the best part of Jason’s week, every time they’ve been around. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s never had this before. He’s not sure how to--what to--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason isn’t really sure what’s going to happen, after this, or how he’ll go back to some random group home or whatever, but for now he’s just going to--to like it while he has it. The books, and the blankets, and the weird, weird family that seem straight out of a book themselves half the time, and just...store it all up, in his head, for when things change again. For when he needs something good. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’ll be okay. This is his rest. He’ll enjoy it while he can, and then get on with things again. It’ll be okay. </span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>And it </span>
  <em>
    <span>is</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just not in the way Jason expects. At all. Because a little over a week later, they discharge him from the hospital to the Waynes. Not a group home, or juvie, or some new foster family he doesn’t know, but to Dr. Wayne, and boy was that a surprise when Bruce and the case worker had come to him and asked--asked--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well. Of course Jason fucking said yes. What else was he supposed to do, make a run for the window and try to go back to his old place on the roof of Marcon’s Deli? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of course Jason said yes. He’s glad he did. It’s a lot harder, eating this way, than it was when he could just eat whatever he found. He’s still tired, and too short and skinny, and has to take a lot of vitamins all the time, which is a pain. Alfred cooks special for him, and they’re all careful about cross-contamination and stuff, but Jason </span>
  <em>
    <span>is </span>
  </em>
  <span>better, he feels stronger and he can eat food for real now and that’s just. A </span>
  <em>
    <span>whole </span>
  </em>
  <span>new level of awesome, after the last several months he had. He’s not as cold. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He laughs more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Living with the Waynes--it’s not like it’s perfect. He yells. Bruce is stupid sometimes. Dick and Bruce argue like relatives on a sitcom, sometimes, except without the laugh track and with more Jason avoiding the room like the plague. But it’s safe, like, really safe. And they all care a lot. And he cares about them right back, despite himself. Bruce tells him he’s welcome to stay. As long as he wants.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason isn’t ready to be honest with himself, not yet. But he thinks, there’s a part of him, deep, that kind of wants that answer to be forever. That he never wants to leave. He doesn’t think that’s really possible, because something’s definitely going to happen, he doesn’t just--Jason doesn’t just get good things, he doesn’t get to keep them for long. It’s just life.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he’s with the Waynes, now. And he’s getting better. He’s going to get to go back to school. How unbelievable is that? </span>
  <em>
    <span>Oh fraptious day, callooh, callay,</span>
  </em>
  <span> and all that shit, a thousand British exclamations of delight, huzzah. Jason’s going to get to have </span>
  <em>
    <span>English class</span>
  </em>
  <span> again. He’s never taking book reports for granted for as long as he lives. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>All in all? Jason’s happy to just...have this home. For as long as it lasts.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>Bruce knows they’re not perfect. He’s only had one kid, and that kid was Dick, coming from loving parents and a solid foundation. Bruce just has what he’s learned from Alfred and his job and about five hundred parenting books and classes that he’s put himself through for the past few years while fostering and adopting Dick in a long string of nights spent anxiously staring at dark ceilings, confessing his terror to Alfred, and worrying that he isn’t enough. That he’s--that his heart’s in the right place, but that he won’t be enough for Dick, won’t be able to find words that Dick needs to hear, or the time he wants, or--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But it doesn’t matter. Bruce doesn’t have to be perfect, according to Alfred and Leslie and the parenting experts and his on-again, off-again therapist downtown. He doesn’t have to always know what to do, or do it right, he just has to respect his kids, and take care of himself, and be there for them for what they need with patience and calm. He just needs to do the best he can, and properly apologize and change when he does mess up. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he’s got two of them now, two very, very different boys to raise. Both brilliant and emotional and full of buried trap-doors of hurt that come out unexpectedly, at themselves, at each other, at Bruce, at the world. Bruce has those too. Sometimes their trap doors activate each others’. But they’re all going to keep being there for each other, reaching out hands and words as best they can, and tag-teaming it through life. Bruce doesn’t have to be perfect. No one’s perfect. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He just has to be there. For Dick. For Jason. Who Bruce knows likes it here, but still doesn’t think it will really last. They’re working on it. They’re trying to slowly pile up more good experiences, more stability, on the kid than he has bad ones, trying to slowly condition him back to a world where people can be trusted, stability can exist, good things can stay, and bad things don’t have to make everything fall apart, make you lose whatever you built. They’re trying to get Jason to a point where he believes they’re going to stay, and that he’s really, truly, able to stay, too. Here, safe, with good things, with a family that’s chosen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And if Bruce has his way, Jason’s will get to be with them for a long, long time.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I HOPE YOU ENJOYED IT, please be gentle with yourself today, drink a good drink, eat something, take your meds! say something nice to yourself! Breathe for a minute deeper than you have been lately. You've got this. &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I think Dick will be next. I really hope this was okay! I had fun writing it, but it's very different from the perspective I'm used to writing from, so...mmmMMMMMM I just hope it was fine. I've got Dick, Jason, Cass, and Damian coming down the pipeline too, whenever writing moods deign to hit me. And when I'm finished with the next story for Shutterbug, too. </p><p>Please hydrate yourself! Eat if you haven't in the last several hours, even if it's just something small! Take any meds you need, and make sure you get some rest. Look out for your mental health in these wild times, and check on the people you love when you have energy to spare. I'm rooting for you!!!!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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